Girls football really kicking off

Another youth football team has boasted about its ever-increasing girls section, reports KEVIN QUINN.

Last week the Glenrothes Strollers reported a surge in girl’s interest in the beautiful game, now the Lomond Colts have been talking about the popularity of their girl’s teams.

John Cooper from the Lomond Colts explained why they set up girls teams.

He said: We started a girls section in 2009 because a lot of girls did not want to play with the boys and when they got to 15 they can only play girls football anyway.

“We decided we would create the infrastructure in the club so they could continue. It gives them an opportunity to play all the way through. Giving them a consistency. We have teams for nine years old up to the under 15s.

“We have got 42 girls at this club and we run three main girl’s teams.”

John revealed that one of the teams is to play in an international tournament shortly.

He said: “It has been great so far, the under 13s team is getting bigger all the time. We could have two teams at that level next year.

“We are going down to play in a tournament at Keele University at the end of the month. Playing teams from all over the world.

“We don’t expect to win many games, there will be teams from the US, Scandinavia and Germany who are so ahead of us and better prepared, but it’s going to be a great experience. We have 14 girls going down for these 11-a-side games.

“We are the only team from Fife attending, so we hope to do well for Glenrothes.”

John added: “It’s good that Glenrothes Strollers have a girl’s section now. It will be good to see some derbies in the future.

“We would like to get more girls on board to put more teams in the leagues, but it is hard to keep them happy as there is not that many games.

“It seems there is lots of girls that want to play football but they don’t know where to go to. We need to let them know we are here.

“We have some of them doing body pump and body combat as part of their football training to keep it interesting for them.”